Tadeusz Biernot

“In selecting the title ‘Ephemerae’ for my exhibition, I reflected on the ephemeral nature of the entire creative process, from the first inspiration to the process itself to the final creation.

An inspiration is ephemeral. It is impermanent like a dream that vanishes on waking. How to recall and restore the moment; the glimpse of faces seen in an elevator, on a subway train, on a tv screen, on a postage stamp?

The creative process has an ephemeral nature to it. In my multilayered paintings each layer is visually present only for a while to be replaced soon after with the next one that conceals the former. It’s an ongoing transition (…until I step out and start chasing another dream).

In my most recent paintings, the collage of ephemera (flashy magazine pages) became more significant and opened another dimension to my paintings as well as to my memory.

To paint, to me, it is a lot like dreaming. I wake up and try to remember what it was I dreamt about.”

Tadeusz Biernot was born in 1954 in Czechowice-Dziedzice, Poland. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland in 1979. He went on to teach type design at the Academy for a subsequent decade.

In 1989 he moved to Italy and a year later to Canada.

In 2005, after fifteen successful years of award-winning creative directing he decided to devote his entire time to painting, his first calling.

Tadeusz Biernot has been exhibiting his works since 1979. His paintings are found in private and corporate collections in the United States, England, Italy, Germany, Holland and Canada.

The driving force behind my paintings is curiosity. The more I discover through the process of painting, the more that remains to be discovered. Each layer of paint, each brush stroke, ignites my memory and sparks my imagination.

The Fascination

I concentrate my attention on the expression of the human face. Our face is a striking part of the body. It is the strongest link between our earthy bodies and our ethereal souls. All feelings, emotions, desires and fears can be read in our faces. In my paintings, I am not attempting to portray the theatrical gestures and dramatic expressions of Caravaggio, but rather the simplicity you find in faces painted by Giotto. I want this simplicity to be provocative.

I was always fascinated with the relation between beauty and emotions. In my painting, I try to convey the feeling of the moment leading to the first kiss. I find it as hard to describe as a feeling you experience watching the shooting star.

The Process

Throughout the painting process, I am flooded by glimpses of faces, and memories of people I knew or was dreaming of. The stream of emotions attached to one image accelerates my memory, to the point that the overall picture becomes fragmented. My hand can’t follow the fast pace of images created by my own imagination. The process is analogous with the biology of life – it is a continuous revelation and destruction of the image, sometimes to the point of destruction of the canvas.

Faces I paint are more than decorative objects that exist only in superficial relation to the surrounding world. I don’t want my paintings to convey any answers. Instead I want my subjects to feel the space between the painting and the viewer, to pursue the viewer to continue the contemplation.

By revealing and hiding, bringing to light and destroying, I want to give my subjects an existential dimension that is open to interpretation.

The Colour

I arrive at a colour scheme rather subconsciously. Mediums and tools are irrelevant to my painting process, but whatever I choose to use: pastels, acrylics, or oils, I search to create a specific aura around my subjects. The colours of some series of my paintings are varied. They change together with the mood of the subjects.

The Light

I believe there is no difference between light and truth. Light brings everything to life. Without light, there is darkness. Therefore light has a special meaning in my paintings. I light my subjects the way I want to bring them to the surface.

The Conclusion

I have a feeling that all I did over those years was a mastering the same painting. But I’m still curious and I try to find the way to discover myself.